There are various forms of waste that need to be managed, which can be divided into two broad categories; organic waste (human, animal, paper, agricultural etc.) and inorganic waste (plastic, metals, glass etc.). All of the clean organic wastes such as food scraps, paper and agricultural waste are used for feeding the chickens, worms or making compost for the permaculture gardens. Human waste will eventually be used for producing biogas. We try to limit the amount of inorganic waste as much as possible (by avoiding interaction with the monetary system), as it is more difficult to recycle or dispose of. We reuse and upcycle these as much as possible and are storing many materials for feed sources for technical materials.

In our rural area of Peru there is no waste collection and little recycling. The locals mostly burn their rubbish or dispose of it in the river or jungle. Waste we cannot reuse needs to be transported to town for disposal (burning or landfill), which we resist as much as possible. Like everywhere in the world, the ubiquitous plastic bag and plastic packaging is our most common waste stream. We minimise as much as possible and are learning creative uses for those that end up in the house (links).